THEM ON US

Yet another article on the “other” Jackson Hole in the Far East has rekindled interest and initiated the uninformed on the alter-community in China fashioning itself after our beloved valley.

A New York Times piece by Andrew Jacobs on Dec. 8 recirculated its way around local social media last week.

“But unlike the bedraggled pioneers who settled the American West, the first inhabitants of Jackson Hole, a resort community on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, arrived by Audi and Land Rover, their trunks filled with French wine and their bank accounts flush with cash,” Jacobs wrote.

According to the developer, Ju Yi International, more than 90 percent of the 1,500 homes in Jackson Hole, China, have been sold. Modest entry-level homes sell for $625,000. Larger spreads have fetched nearly $8 million.

Snowboarder remembered

Callagy Fahey Ross, 23, who died in a snowboarding accident at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort last Monday, was eulogized by Vermont’s Public Radio. The Boston native had made Stowe, Vermont, her most recent home before moving to Jackson five days before colliding with a tree on the Moran run.

“Callagy was raised on love, homemade bread, discipline, physical activity and generosity,” Ross’ family wrote in an obituary appearing in the Stowe Reporter. “To know Callagy was to witness true beauty and share in a vibrancy that made all happy to be around her.”

Her family named three Vermont charities for memorial donations: Vermont Works for Women, the Burton Chill Foundation and the University of Vermont sailing team.

Idaho lawmen leaving

The Teton County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Department has been hit with a rash of resignations recently. Three deputies have quit in the past two months.

“It’s going to affect our investigations because I’m going to have to put my investigator on the road,” Teton County Sheriff Tony Liford told the Teton Valley News. “So yeah, it’s going to make it very difficult.”

Liford said six deputies, in total, have left the office because of the attitude of the county prosecutor’s office.

“It’s taken a long time to get a quality crew that we have, and now we’re losing them because we have a hostile deputy prosecutor,” the sheriff said.

State of decline

Times continue to get tougher for Wyoming’s economy. The Equality State is one of four states experiencing shrinking revenues.

The state’s gross domestic product shrank 2.3 percent in the second quarter after a 6.1 percent drop during the first three months of the year, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The statistics are considered an indication of the downturn in the energy industry.

November was a flurry of activity for Jackson Hole Airport with a record number of passengers tallied. An anticipated busy December will almost definitely mean Wyoming’s busiest airport should shatter last year’s record 316,181 passengers.

The story aired on Idaho Falls ABC affiliate TV station ABC Local News 8.

Longest ride

The next time you are tempted to complain about your commute, remember Victoria Nichols. The 15-year-old sophomore at Kelly Walsh High School certainly has one of the longest bus rides to school of anyone in the country.

Each weekday at 6:15 a.m., Nichols boards Bus 107 for the 120-mile, two-hour round trip trek to school. Heather Richards penned the story for the Casper Star Tribune.

Land laws block info

ABC News picked up a story by Ben Neary via the Associated Press that narrated Wyoming’s controversial new legislation barring the collection of data on private land with stricter trespassing laws.

A lawyer representing a coalition of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Center for Food Safety, National Press Photographers Association, Natural Resources Defense Council and Western Watersheds Project had a few words for a federal judge last Friday.Mainly that two new Wyoming laws improperly bar them from gathering information about the impact of agriculture and other industries on private and public lands.

“The groups fear the measures will inspire other energy and development-friendly western states to follow Wyoming’s lead,” Neary wrote. PJH